


Model Citizen

by Mirabai0821



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, F/M, Female Character of Color, Gaslighting, Mentions of possible sexual abuse, Physical Abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-12-18
Updated: 2015-12-18
Packaged: 2018-05-07 10:12:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 9,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5452910
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mirabai0821/pseuds/Mirabai0821
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He remembers the guy, taller, older. He had the good sense to look remorseful when they brought him in. Very respectful with his ‘yes sirs’ and ‘no ma’ams’ but there was something about his tone, he remembers, that didn’t quite seem sincere.</p><p>Like this was all an act.</p><p>He looked to be a good actor. A model citizen.</p><p>Officer Rutherford feels his stomach drop when she takes off her sunglasses revealing a large ugly bruise on her left eye, darker even than the skin she was made in, the opposite of his pale and sandy complexion.</p><p>What kind of monster could do that to a beautiful woman like her?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of abuse.

It’s 6 o’clock in the middle of winter, pitch black as though it were midnight and she walks into the precinct wearing sunglasses.

That’s how he knows there’s a problem.

And she shakes, not like the last leaves hanging onto the branches outside.  


No, she knows how to hide it.

And so does he, so he doesn’t miss the way she keeps talking with her hands as she explains herself to the desk sergeant.

“Will you please just let me know when he’s out?”

 _He_ could be anyone, he thinks. A boyfriend, a hopefully ex-boyfriend, a father even.  


She gives her name, first and last.

She gives his name, first and last.

And they match.

He remembers the guy, taller, older. He had the good sense to look remorseful when they brought him in. Very respectful with his ‘yes sirs’ and ‘no ma’ams’ but there was something about his tone, he remembers, that didn’t quite seem sincere.  


Like this was all an act.  


He looked to be a good actor. A model citizen.  


Officer Rutherford feels his stomach drop when she takes off her sunglasses revealing a large ugly bruise on her left eye, darker even than the skin she was made in, the opposite of his pale and sandy complexion.

What kind of monster could do that to a beautiful woman like her?

But for the shaking, she doesn’t look vulnerable. Doesn’t have that wide eyed, shell shocked stare he’d seen in so many other women and men who came in with bruises on their face put there by people supposed to love them.

She just looks tired.  


Tired of a familiar song and dance that’s gone on way too long.

The desk sergeant shakes his head, and she drops hers for a fraction before donning her sunglasses to go back outside.

“Miss.” He calls after her, even as his brain berates him for being stupid. This isn’t his place, she doesn’t need his help. Not the kind of help she _really_ needs like an anonymous fist in the dark for a man who as the same last name as her.  


But he does this job to help. And he wants to help. Maker fucking take him, he wants to help so bad that he cures _all_ her ails and not just this one.

“Yes?”

“I couldn’t help but overhear. You said you were…”

“I just want to know if you ever release Gareth Trevelyan that you’d give me a call.”

“Do you have a restraining order against him ma’am?”

“Yes.”

“Then you know he’s not supposed to come within 500 feet of you for at least the next year.”

“You gonna tell him that when he shows up at home when he gets free?”

“Do you want me to?”

She takes her glasses off under the sodium lights and her bruise gets even uglier under the harsh yellow tone. She gives him a once over, her lip curled in a snarl ready to bark like the fierce mabari he already knows she is.  


“Wait! That sounded way worse than how I meant it. I mean, what I wanted to say was uh…ahhh…well Miss…”

Her eyes, the irises and not the blood in them, throw him off because they’re too beautiful, knock the sensitivity training right out of him.

“You wanna help me?” She helps him, finishing his thought.

“I do. I would uh…let you know if your husb—“

“Father. He’s my father.”

“Right. Technically we aren’t obligated to inform people when inmates are released. A bullshit rule I know, I’d change them if I made them. But if you give me your number—Maker I sound like such an ass—I’d give you a call.”

“What’s your name?”

“Officer Rutherford.”

“I meant your whole name, unless your parents were seers or really really wanted you to be a cop.”

“Cullen,” He corrects with what he knows is a dumb looking grin on his dumb looking face in front of a girl who, if she wanted to, could wrap him tight around her little finger with just a smile.

“Nice to meet you Cullen. My name is Evelyn.”

She smiles.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posted this originally to tumblr. Just me excising the demons.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for mentions of physical abuse.

Makers bleeding fuck he’s got a dumb face. It is intelligent for sure, the eyes have it, all of it, she can see the thick clockwork of wheels turning behind his gaze of yellow gold. He’s smart, but the grins he flashes at her make him look like a child seeing fireworks, or snow, or Mother Satinalia for the first time. Silly, goofy, and awestruck.  


Doesn’t matter.

Goofy grins or not, he’s got a badge, and a gun, which means if he uses either he can get away with anything.

Even murder.

 _Especially_ murder.

So she doesn’t feel guilty taking his generosity or his dumb grins, so she can feel safe for a few hours out of the week.

He hasn’t asked yet for anything she doesn’t want to give.

He hasn’t really asked for anything. Coming to this bar was her idea she remembers knocking back another fist of scotch.

He doesn’t tell her to take it easy, and makes no remark on the fact that she’s drinking enough for the both of them. Maybe this is when he’ll ask for what she doesn’t want to give. 

Typical. Get her sloshed and ask a question she can’t rightfully answer.

She knew eventually this was going to end. She’s using him for protection and he’s using her as a chance to get some easy pussy.

Of course they were gonna both lose in the end.

“Sov’rn for your thoughts?”

She glares at him. “You can’t afford me.” Disgusted with him for no real slight, and for herself for getting in too deep with a Maker fucked cop with a dumb fucking grin, she rises to leave. The bar’s not far from home, she can walk. She never really needed his help anyway. She was just using him to feel safe.

Using him to hear a voice over that phone that felt sweet and didn’t sting with curses or hurled guilts.

Using him for a chance to forget her new apartment is morbidly lonely at wintertime with a half-constructed Satinalia tree with no lights or ornaments.

She rises and offers him no explanation, but her phone buzzes before she can get to the door.

 _Grandaddy_ it flashes.

She answers.

…

“No I didn’t.”

…

“Because the victim’s advocate lady said I didn’t have to go.”

…

“I don’t care that he won’t be in the room with me, I don’t wanna see him! Not in person, not through a barrier of glass, not even on a fucking TV screen.

…

She laughs hard and loud, turning a few heads her way but they can all go fuck themselves. “500k, good, let him rot in there.”

…

She hears a name and her hand starts to shake. The cousin, the one who made millions with his franchises. Of course they’d get him to put his money behind this. Get him a slick ass lawyer that’d have him out before her bruises heal.

…

Granddaddy asks a question and she almost drops her phone. There’s a cool current in the air but the door to the bar stays closed. She realizes too late that it came from behind her. Cullen’s at her back, hand hovering at the small of it, not touching, he’s too polite to touch without permission. That’s too familiar and she’s too far gone to consent to even that. But his hand is there, radiating warmth and the promise that if she wobbled…

“I will not _drop the charges!_ Do you remember what he did to me?”

…

“I don’t give a fuck if he loses the house or his job. I don’t care that he’s family.”

…

“A model citizen??”

It’s through two filters, a phone and her grandfather’s voice. But she can hear the sweetness _he_ flavors the words with. She can hear it as though it’s _his_ voice in her ears. The perfection with which it’d be spoken, the sincerity that only she could tell is false.

Her heart and breath speeds up too fast for her to catch it, they get away from her, outracing her, and the tears join them. Her face is wet and now the bar patrons are really staring.

But he doesn’t move her, doesn’t care if she’s making a scene.

That dumb face is all serious business now, equal parts ready to chuck the phone or pull some cop shit and trace the call so he can beat the living daylights out of anyone who would suggest that she drop the charges.

She murmurs a broken goodbye and it takes her three tries to stuff the overlarge phone into her pocket. 

“Hey?  You okay?” He asks and he gives her a half-hearted dumb grin because fuck…it makes her smile, and that coil around her little finger gets tighter.  



	3. Chapter 3

"Evelyn.”

“I’m okay.”

“Are you? You’re shaking.”

“Just give me a minute.”

“Hey…”

“No. Don’t do that pity shit. I’m fine. I’m okay.”

“If it’s about the prelim…”

“They’re trying to say he’s never done this before. That this is his first incidence!”

She shakes harder, she spills the coffee in her mug.

He reaches for it, pries it out of her clawed grip and his hand takes its place.

He’s not asking because he already knows, making her mark the mental check  boxes, to get her mind off anything to do with Monday and that hearing.

“You have a restraining order.”  


“Yes.”

“You have protection at work.”

“Yes, they’ll call the cops if he comes to the building.”

“You have pepper spray.”

“Yes. Got it on sale.”

“You have me.”

She lifts her gaze from the spilled coffee on the table, she can’t quite bring her eyes to his, afraid of the pity she knows she’ll see there. Those condescending little smiles that say ‘you poor thing’ with a well meaning gaze. 

Two fingers lift the gaze from the scar on his mouth to his eyes. And there is no pity there. Only firm resolution cast in gold.

“You have me.” He repeats.

Her trembling subsides, but only a little.

“Yes.”


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for references to physical abuse.

The prosecutor explains and explains. Something about jurisdiction, something about grand juries and the difference between municipal and county and whatever.

She doesn’t hear him focused instead on the single gut souring thought.

_He will be free tonight._

Orders of protection, GPS bracelets, the entirety of the Kirkwall Police Department, and the promise of one officer in particular and she _still_ can’t keep the tremble from her hands.

He’s asked about the car.

About the house.

About his job.

He’s asked if his church friends know.

He’s asked if his golf buddies know.

He hasn’t asked about her bruises, or her nightmares, or how she’s doing. Hasn’t offered an apology through his own voice or through others, his slick ass lawyer or the millionaire cousin who will probably pay his way out of jail.

Grandaddy called. Making promises about therapy, treatment, and classes. He made no promise of apology.

It’s all lipservice anyway she knows, paid to put it on paper to wave in her face and say “See I got help. I’m cured!”

Right before he puts the blade or the bullet in her heart.

The Victim’s Advocate is a sweet lady, reassuring, comforting

_Canned._

This is a script said with all the cadence of a practice speech. She even thinks she can see the woman turn her eyes into her skull and reach into her brain for the blurb she is supposed to say next.

“B.” He calls, and his voice is warm. “You don’t have to go in there. I’ll go. I’ll listen for you so you don’t have to see him.”

She denies him, squeezing his hand with a _fire_ in her eyes that wraps him around her little finger far tighter than any of her smiles. “No. I’ll go.”

So they go.

The hearing is already underway when they sneak in, and he’s standing there, his back to her eyes, unable to know that she sees him.

_That she sees him._

And that she’s the only one here who has ever seen him for what he is and what he’s _not._

The deacons, the golf buddies, the co-workers see the model citizen.

She sees the rot.

And always has. Ever since he kicked in her door at Satinalia years ago and gave her mother a black eye that lasted 2 months and blood in the eye that lasted for 3.

She hears the model citizen when he gives his answers to the judge and it makes her stomach squeeze. The Model Citizen voice, the one he uses when he wants to be charming.

_Disarming_.

Convicted in thought and purpose. “Yes sir. No sir. Absoulutely sir.” And she sees the judge relax, his shoulders loosen _This one won’t give me any trouble._

“Bail is reduced to 100,000 royals.”

There is more, but she stops listening. 100,000 royals means he needs only 10,000. Chump change to the man holding the pursestrings. He will be free.

_He will be free._

He’s seated now in the gallery, separated from her by two cops, an aisle of carpet and an ex-Templar turned cop ready to move Thedas to keep him from her.

His hand is tight and tender, and without it, she’d fall through the floor, eaten alive by fear and, strangely enough, guilt. But he squeezes and she is made strong again.

She lifts her eyes from the floor, daring to meet his gaze and she has to remember not to smile. To forget that conditioning. To forget those pre programmed courtesies he’s beaten into her.

And he

Has a face

That she will carry to her grave.

This wasn’t sorrow or remorse or even shame that his daughter sees him thusly, that the evidence of his deep and fatherly affection is bruised into the orbit around her eye, abraded into her shoulder, and scratched into her back.

He wears a look of fury. Thunder and lightning and rage. And for a moment, wild indignant fury sparks in her own eyes, the fire he remembers from before. She stares back, only for a moment. Face blank of any comforting emotion, hoping and praying that with a stare he knows.

_I am done with you._

He leads her away, as a seed of unnamable emotion plants and roots and grows in her chest. Choking her.

Returning the trembling to her hands.   



	5. Chapter 5

She doesn’t recognize the number, and for one heart seizing moment, given the local area code, she thinks it’s the jail.

Her father calling to beg or curse at her, to apologize and lie, or scream and denigrate, to find some way to tear into her with words now that he can’t do it with his fingernails.

With his spittle.

With his foot pressed to her cheek.

With a knife to her eyeball.

She answers, voice teetering on the edge of breaking. “H-H-Hello?”

“Evelyn?”  


Her heart unclenches, it’s dad’s wife, now hopefully well on her way to being his third ex.

“Hi.” She answers, sweat wicking away from her brow.  


“I just wanted to call you and see how you were doing.”  


“I’m fine.” She lies, hoping the easy and carefree tone didn’t sound too fake over the phone.

The half empty bottle of Riesling is proof enough of her out and out _not_  fine-ness.  


“Well, I wanted you to know that you’ll always have us so I don’t want you to feel alone.”  


“Thank you, that means a lot.” She makes the requisite smile on her face, knowing the impact it has on her voice. 

It _is_ a nice sentiment from people of no kin. She has no family out this way, the closest blood relative in Starkhaven which might as well be Minrathous for how far it is.  


It is good to know that Satinalia needn’t be spent alone chugging another cheap bottle of wine, curled up in an empty house, the dent where her head went through the drywall still visible even though she moved the TV in front of the hole.

She wouldn’t dare ask the cop. He’s likely sick of her, sick of her weeping, clutching his shirts, sick of being the strong one for someone so weak.

They exchange pleasantries, skirting and avoiding the topic of her father, the image of his hateful scowl still burning behind her closed eyelids. She hangs up after a perfunctory goodbye and promise of keeping in touch.

She will.

She’ll have too.

She figures the cop isn’t long for her world, off to find pussy a little more easy with a lot less baggage.

She buries her head in her hands, shuddering with a heaved sob, whatever food in the oven long since dried out from neglect and too high temperatures.

Her phone rings again.

The number’s local.

“Hello?”  


“Hey.”  


It’s him.

He hears the smile in her voice.

And it’s genuine.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

He tries to keep his discomfort to himself. She doesn’t need any more stress or heartache or worry. He only wants to put smiles on her face and laughter in her mouth. He puts the brightness in her eyes, fills them up so there is no room for tears.

But he hates where she works.

And that’s odd because she doesn’t work any place remotely dangerous, her office building situated in a part of town that can only call it self Kirkwall on the virtue it’s got one pinky toe still inside the proper area code. It’s about as far away from the urban blight of the city’s heart where his precinct is as she can get. 

And he’s grateful for that on most days. Capable girl, knows how to walk in the city, keeps her head high, eyes on the street and passers-by and not glued to phone or sidewalk like most folk. The folks that end up mugged or stabbed or worse when it got dark.

No.

He hates where she works because it’s isolated and he has to imagine her walking down a lonely, cold road, just stepped free of her bus, her hands shoved into her pockets, earbuds shoved into her ears, striding down the gentle slope of a steep hill to the bottom of an industrial park where her building waits.

Where _he_ could be, lying in wait for her. Ready to snatch her or even kill her semi-broad daylight be damned. It’s winter, it gets light later and dark earlier. And he knows she arrives and departs in darkness.

She’s got her mace. He bought it for her himself, police grade, the atomized weaponized droplets enough to give a druffalo pause.

Had he his way, she’d carry a gun.

But she’s too sweet for guns, too sweet for that kind of violence even though it’s already been visited upon her by her father’s fists and cruelty.

He’s _terrified_ that she’s too sweet to do what needs to be done should he come after her. That her pre-programmed filial piety will win out over self-preservation. He swears to himself, he’ll reach into her heart with his bare damned hands and rewrite that code line by line, kiss by kiss.  


Cullen reclines in his chair, dreading to sign his name to the homicide report on his desk; a man murdered by his husband after repeated promises to ‘be better next time’ willing himself to _not_ draw any unfortunate parallels. He imagines her in her long slow walk, head bobbing to whatever blaring horns she’s got queued up on her phone, trying to force her bleary mind to wake for the day ahead.

He imagines a figure walking up the hill toward her, a rare and uncommon occurrence. People only go down the hill in the morning, they go up the hill in the afternoon. But it’s 7 a.m. and this figure, this man is walking up the hill. 

On her side of the street.

Towards her.

She notices too late. And she can tell in the dim grey light of the morning this man is her father’s color, dark oak brown, just like she is. But her mind remains logical _‘it’s not him’_ she thinks, _‘he’s supposed to tell me if he gets out’ ._

Panic breaks him out of his morbid daydream, checking the inmate roster, Maker fucking take him, he forgot to check when he got in!

_And he can’t find his name._

She remains logical, she maintains her stride, but now instead of her eyes glazing over as the music takes hold, she fixes firm gaze on this man’s face, looking for the features that would deny it’s him.

And she can’t find any yet, he’s still too far way.

Dad has a swagger when he walks, affecting an air of easy confidence. The kind that lets people know this man is a _model citizen_ , upright and carefree.

This man walks with a swagger.

Cullen checks again, and again, triple checks, before he abandons the computer altogether in favor of going down to the cells to lay eyes on the bastard himself.

_He’s still not there._

Dad also prefers sportswear, sweats and breakaways, pullovers, and basketball shoes.

This man is wearing that too.

Cullen is eight seconds away from pulling this pencil pushing bastard out of his chair and over the desk by his teeth. “Where is Gareth Trevelyan!” He almost screams, and the clerk yawns, typing casually into the computer, lazily, unaware that her life could very well depend on how fast he gets the information he needs.

Her life.

His heart.

Depends on this.

She’s still walking, almost to her destination, close enough to note the cap this man is wearing is branded with the same golf logo of the hat she gave him for Satinalia once.

Same color too.

He’s the same height.

And the same build.

Blind, bleeding panic grabs her heart and tears it from her. She seizes, fear galloping in her veins almost instantaneously. But her body keeps bloody walking unsure of what to do, halla in the headlights. She grips her keys in her pocket, screaming at herself for _leaving the mace he gave her at home_ and she almost screams.

“He’s out.” The clerk replies, yawning again.

Cullen dies, his heart stops, everything ends. Failed in his one and only duty.   


To protect her.

The clerk finishes his yawn and continues. “Sent to county lock up, he’s at Hightown now.”

It’s not him. Sweet Maker. It’s not him. In look and manner, that man could have been her father. For 30 world ending seconds, he was and she was paralyzed, unable to act. She walks past him, gives the smallest of morning greetings as her knees shake. She barely makes it to her desk before sinking into her chair.

New life floods him, he doesn’t even thank the clerk before he tears a trail of fire from that desk back to his own, ripping open the drawer to reach for his cell phone.

And her name is already flashing on the screen.

“Evelyn? Talk to me baby girl, please.”

“It was him, Oh Maker, I thought it was _him!_ ”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You'd be surprised how much of this is the life and not the art.


	7. Chapter 7

Her shaking has stopped by the time he reaches her. To the Void with it, he’s got the vacation, not like he’s ever used it before and she’s got her own time off coming so they take it today.

He asks where she wants to go, she almost says to heaven to be done with this stupid _fear_ , unaware that if she asks, he’ll take her to the moon, but the grocery store around the corner will have to do for now.

He reaches for the chocolate sandwich cookies, and she the red licorice twists, and from there they grab whatever makes the corners of their mouths twitch up.

Plain potato chips. Hot chocolate. Elf-a-Cola. A sweet white wine for her and a dark stout six pack for him, and they don’t give a flipping flying fuck that they are buying liquor at 9 in the morning on a Thursday.

To finish, he grabs a quart of butter pecan ice cream, nodding at the freezer asking her to pick one too.

She hesitates in the open freezer door, reaching for the strawberry.

“Dad liked strawberry. So do I. He says I got it from him.” 

She snatches the flavor and slams the door with a decided smack, tossing the quart of premium brand ice cream into their curious little cart, like a shopping buggy sliced in half.

“He ain’t takin’ from me my fucking ice cream okay?”

He doesn’t laugh because it’s not funny. Instead his hand slips into hers with a warm squeeze.

And it is _she_ who laces their fingers together, squeezing back. Indulging herself this one little bit of affection before it’ll be inevitably taken away.

She doesn’t know that the bones in his legs have completely disappeared.

He apologizes as he slips his key into the lock. “Wasn’t expecting company.”

A huge, window shuddering bark answers the open door and Cullen curses himself again for forgetting. “Oh shit, I’m sorry, he’s a good dog, he doesn’t–”

“PUPPY!”

Lieutenant the mabari ignores his master, padding straight for the first companion he’s brought home in…well even the had a memory capacity that could catalogue the passage of time, it’d _still_ be a very long time. He can smell the fear on her, but the longer she’s near the Master, the faster and faster it sloughs off, old skin washing away to reveal newer flesh with newer closed up scars-healing scars.

But with him, she is fearless. She doesn’t crouch to her knees, rather she dutifully pushes forth a hand for him to inspect but he knows her heart by the look in her eyes alone, and he knows the Master’s heart by the look in his eyes _for her_ , so he ignores her hand, rears on his back legs, and kisses her face with one long sloppy lick. 

“Lieutenant! No! Down boy.”

But then she giggles and returns his kiss with one placed to his wet nose and oh…he doesn’t have the heart to send the dog back to his kennel.

He throws their pizzas (supreme for him, stuffed crust for her, they will eat both singlehandedly) into the oven.

“Are you comfortable?”

She looks a little wound up despite Lieutenant’s presence at her feet. “I’ve never been to your place before. Wish I’d worn something better.”

She’s dressed business casual and he’s still in his officer’s uniform. He makes a quick dash to the back to change, returning with shirt he hasn’t worn since college (as it has his old alma mater on it) and a pair of pajama pants, red flannel perfect for drafty old one bedrooms in the city’s industrial district.  
  
“They uhh, they might be a little big on you.” She quirks a half smile, eyes suddenly flitting to the floor, her nose wrinkling as though she just took a whiff of pepper. She mutters her thanks and disappears to the bathroom to change.

The shirt is too big, pants too, having to be tied with a knot closed instead of the drawstrings. “I uhh…military training it …it…you lose…”

She’s pulled her hair out of its smart bun and he’s seen it down before but he’s never watched her loose it, pulling on a string or hair tie or whatever and it’s like..he doesn’t really have an analogy, save only the knowledge that it is quite possibly the most mesmerizingly beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

She sees his blush slowly creep from the collar of his t-shirt, up the straight muscled column of his neck around the back to the tips of his ears, and she feels heat flare in the apples of her cheeks, skin too dark to be affected by color. “Thanks, it’s really comfy.”

They sit curled on opposite ends of the couch both paying no attention to the tv, the mindless action comedy they chose after a rousing game of mage, templar, chantry that had them both cackling, the dog barking his own laughter with them.

She is shaking for a completely different reason now. Trembling with the need to touch the man on the other end of the couch, heart chained to her chest, restricted, unable though she was oh so willing to give to him.

He’s been sweet, patient, and kind, but she was just using him to feel safe. She doesn’t want to use anymore, she wants to give love and take whatever shadows haunt _his_ mind for a change. Yet he’s just a cop jumping through one too many hoops for a lay.

She’s so near, her perfume driving him utterly mad with the need to settle her against his chest and just _breathe_ her. But she needs her space, clear and plain by the distance she’s put between them. He would rather lose his badge than abuse her trust, allow her to think he’s done all this for a chance at the vulnerable girl.

He waits then, deciding that if he ever sees Gareth face-to-face again, that he’d shake his hand and thank him for the blessing of his daughter.

Before spitting in his face.

The movie ends with a kiss between newfound lovers and all three of them sigh deeply.   


Even the dog.

Cullen excuses himself to the washroom to splash ice water on his face and curse every moment of his existence that he doesn’t tell that woman on his couch that he’s in love with her. Lieutenant immediately occupies Master’s vacated spot, resting his head in her lap.

“Sweet puppy,” she says, idly stroking a head larger than the engine block in most smart cars. “Keep a secret pup?”

Lieutenant chuffs. He is 7 years old thank you very much.

She expects a toilet flush to announce his return, or creaky wooden floorboards. Only he didn’t go, so no toilet flush. And his apartment is on the bottom floor so there’s no give between the wood and the foundation to sound a squeak.

So there was no way really for her to know that he was standing at the end of his hallway right when she whispers her confession into his dog’s ear.

“I think I might be in love with your Master.”


	8. Chapter 8

He is proud, he wants to throw a parade for himself in his head, pat himself on the back, tell himself ‘Good job Cullen! When the woman you’ve most likely been in love with since you saw her smile just admitted to loving you and you totally didn’t die.’

Confetti and streamers on the house.

But after that initial little shock wears off, he’s still standing there, heart in his throat wondering if he should let her know he heard.

But she’s lost in the dog’s adoring gaze and in his soft comforting fur so she keeps talking to her four legged confidant.

“I thought this would be a two or three night thing, lean on him a little bit, keep him around for his gun in case dad got out. Some kind of race, see how long could I stay with him before he wants to fuck me. Knowing all this, whatever this is, was temporary.”

The dog whines.  _Please don’t go, you smell nice._

“I thought he’d get tired of me, the crying girl, the girl that calls in the middle of the night because she’s terrified for no reason. But he kept.” Her hands slap into her lap with a reserved sigh. “He kept pickin’ up the phone pup.

“And I know better than to get mixed in with a  _cop_.”

They never really brought it up in this weird friendship. His profession and her identity in a city like Kirkwall were at odds with each other. Oil and water.

Or fire and gasoline.

But they never really mentioned it, preferring instead to keep the topics light when they could, or heavy when the discussion veered inevitably toward her father.

Only now did he feel it, the ‘difference’ between him and her that went beyond the physical. The ideological. Suddenly he feels nude, uncovered and laid bare. He isn’t ashamed of his job, and he hasn’t done anything that’s put a hard question to his heart. Guilt isn’t the word, he doesn’t know what the word is.

“But he’s,” her eyes slip closed and that coil tightening, finger wrapping smile, the one that got him in this whole glorious, wonderful mess in the first place, appears on her face. Grows like a winter rose, rare and stunning and harrowed, on her face and she is so unutterably beautiful that he can’t keep quiet anymore.

He’s ready to jump, get in her face, hold it in his hands and whisper between kisses over and over again ‘I love you’, ‘I love you’, ‘I love you,’”

It’s on his lips, bubbling like water ready to boil just like the smile on his face.

When her phone buzzes.

The smile slides away, and the hollow eyed sadness returns to her gaze. She fishes for her phone admist the snacks and food and finds it, buried under her licorice and his chocolate sandwhich cookies.

Her gasp of fear breaks his heart into innumerable and unrecoverable pieces. That gasps hollows out into a moan, and her thumbs are typing frantically.

Too late again too confess, now he makes his presence known.

“Ev?”

“Monday. He’ll be free on Monday.” 

* * *

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was going to sweet, fluffy, possibly smutty, then life got all into the art.  
> Fuck.


	9. Chapter 9

“Off!”

Lieutenant obeys, vacating his thieved space on the couch. Sliding next to her, he slings an arm around her shoulder and pulls hard. “Are you sure?”

“Millionaire cousin confirmed it. Monday he’ll post bail, the lawyer will be there to ensure he’s released.”

He marks his mental checkboxes, this time for _his_ peace of mind.

Order of protection.

Work alerted.

Mace.

Two buddies who owe him favors keeping an eye on Gareth at work and home. (She doesn’t know about this one and he’s reluctant to tell her, doesn’t want to overstep boundaries they haven’t really established yet.)

“He doesn’t know where my new apartment is and with the order of protection if comes near me,”

“His ass will go right back to jail and stay there this time.” He asserts.

She breathes deeply, in and out, balling her fists willing herself not to cry, no more tears will be wasted on him. “I will be okay. It’s not my fault.”

She is repeating what the victim's advocate told her, he knows.

It's canned

It's trite.

 _It works_.

She settles, rigid spine melting, relaxing into his half-embrace.

“What do you need Ev, what can I do to help?”

Her courage allows for the assertion of her innocence, her safety. She can tell herself she will be alright. Tell herself this wasn't her fault. That she is strong, resilient, and that it's ok to be weak and needful too. She can say all that to herself, hold it tight to her skin like armor. Protection from doubts’ damages. She _can_ do all that.

So she _can_ tell him this.

“Kiss me. _Please_.”

He’s proud of himself again. Throws another mental parade. He doesn't stammer or hesitate.

He falls into her, bringing lips to lips in a tender meeting of flesh. He applies the tiniest of pressures to her mouth, but keeps his closed and takes no more. Too much has been taken from her already, and he is content to accept whatever she will bless him with.

He pulls away and her eyes don't open immediately, still heavy and unresponsive, her mind wiped clean replaced by his warm sunshine. Finally lashes and lids obey command, her eyes flutter open...but only half way.

“Would you think less of me,” she gasps breathy and hot against his mouth. “If I asked for another?”

“Sweetling, you _never_ have to ask.”

He tries, tries to make the words mean more than what they are. And the ways she _smiles_ in response lets him know she understands. Her arms wrap around his neck and she pulls them down into the couch cushions, sinking into the fabric and each other.

Flush together, he can’t stop the tiny moan that escapes him, a frission of thrill coursing in his blood like a drug when she answers him with her own soft cry. The hands around his neck clutch, pulling them yet closer. She wants her father’s touched scoured from her, his violence ablated from her skin, burned off and away.

He obliges, eagerly, the lips at her mouth trailing down the curve of her jaw and up again to her ear to nibble at a naked earlobe.

His touch is perfect. Just what she needs. He is just what she needs.

“I think I’m in love with you,” her mouth outruns her brain and she doesn’t care, cares less when she hears him chuckle softly in her ear.

He pulls back, heart protesting against the withdrawal from her. She lays under him, propped up on the arm of his couch, arms on his shoulders, protesting too, ready to pull him back down into her. But he braces a forearm next to her head, and with his other hand, slides his fingers against her cheek, careful of the still healing bruise around her eye. “So I heard.”

“How?” She quirks her head sideways, mirth glimmering in her eyes, like whiskey in a crystal cut tumbler. “You got cameras in your house officer?”

He shrugs. “The dog told me.”

She gets it, but plays along still. “Traitor.” She turns her head to Lieutenant, whose ears droop with the teasing censure. “You heard all that?”

He nods, thumb still sliding against her cheek.

“I’m sorry, the whole ‘using you’ thing.”

He shakes his head, accepting but discarding the apology, unnecessary as it is. “I understand.”

“Do you?”

“Mmhm and...I, Evelyn I…”

The bright sharp sound of her buzzing phone cuts through the heavy haze of the room. She sighs and shifts, and he scoots away letting her up to answer.

It’s a Wycome area code, unknown number. “Millionaire cousin,” she mutters, clicking the accept button.

Only it’s not.

“Nug?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> At least they kissed this time right?


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: References to possible sexual abuse. NOTHING explicit, not even close, but its there.

“Dad?”

She goes cold, swallowing thickly. Her bruises tingle as her skin heats, flesh remembering what father has done.

He is wide eyed and helpless, wishing he could reach into the phone and tear his throat out through the technology.

She doesn’t even click the cancel button, just flings the phone across the living room metal and plastic and his voice searing her skin.

She crumples once it’s gone from her hands, more angry at herself for being _so stupid_ than anything else.

Cullen picks up the phone from the floor, the OuterBox worth its price keeping the phone inside of it protected from scratch and damage. He places it face down on the coffee table, something comforting readied on his tongue before.

It buzzes again.

She flips it, Wycome.

She declines the call and opens the messenger, asking the ‘well-on-her-way-to-being-ex’ wife if she’s alright.

She is, but her phone buzzes again during their messaging.

And again.

And again.

Five times in as many hours.

They quiet, they stop speaking to each other. Whatever he meant to say and whatever she meant to answer is lost now, stolen away. Jailed even, and he can still take from her. He tries to talk to her in between the ringing phone but she waves him off, rapid texting between her and the former, never-really-should-have-been wife. He turns on the TV to fill the silence.

Fed up and furious, on the sixth buzz Cullen picks up the phone and answers “Listen asshole…”

“Evelyn? It’s Rouen I’ve been trying to call you for the last few hours. Are you alright?”

She takes the phone from him. “No I’m not alright. It’s a violation of the protection order for him to call.”

“I know, I know. And I’m sorry. That’s my bad. He was so adamant that you know…”

“Know what?”

“That he hasn’t been sleeping or eating. They’ve got him in this massive warehouse type room, stuffed with cots. It’s horrible, he’s so broken up about this.”

She’s freezing and shaking despite the pooch warming her icy toes and the warmth of _him_ so close to her.

But at his words she becomes a sunflare, anger flaming high like brandy drizzled in a skillet. “What about me who’s actually fucking broken! I can’t sleep, I have nightmares! Every Rivaini guy in sneakers between 45 and 60 looks like him no exceptions! There’s a huge bruise on my face that I can’t cover no matter how much makeup I slather onto it and he wants me to know how broken up he is??”

Up and pacing, thudding back and forth on the heels of her feet and he’s suddenly glad that he lives on the bottom floor. But her anger is righteous, it burns in her eyes and in the snarl curling at her lip. She looks like Andraste the Avenger and his heart leaps and somersaults in his chest.

When she hangs up the phone, he will tell her he loves her. No excuses, not anymore.

“I’m so sorry cousin, that this happened. And he’s sorry too. He says the Maker was moving on his heart. And he just wants you to know before he’s released on Monday that he forgives you and he won’t press charges. That’s all he wanted to say.”

He can’t hear what’s spoken, but it’s not good. She stops pacing, her fisted hand unclenches.

“He forgives _me_? For what?”

“He says all he was trying to do was protect himself from you, that you attacked him and he defended himself and he went too far.”

“And you,” The flare dies, the alcohol burns away. “Believe him.” Its not a question. She already knows. Incarceration hasn’t humbled him, possibly never will. The master manipulator has returned.

“I saw the gash on his head from the bottle…”

“That I hit him with to GET AWAY. He’s sick Rouen, telling himself lies so much to protect his identity, so people still believe he’s a _model fucking citizen_ that he starts to believe the bullshit he spews. He’s always done that! He did it with Mama when they were married. With his second wife. With me when he…”

He swore. 

_He swore._

Making all kinds of promises and affirmations when confronted, he swore to his innocence. To the inherent innocence of sharing a bed with his 13,14,15 year old daughter.

And it’s something one _never_ wants to believe of a parent. So she didn’t.

And now she’s not so sure anymore.

Twenty year old Evelyn believed him, this newer older self, doesn’t anymore.

This time she spikes the phone, deliberate in her intentions to break it. The OuterBox does its job again, the call disconnects and she’s moving, furiously pounding away toward his bathroom.

When she emerges she’s fully dressed, his borrowed clothes folded neatly in her hands, her messenger bag slung across her body.

It’s dark but it’s not late, early evening, light flurries dusting sidewalk and tree branches in the first significant snow of the season.

“I have to go. I’m sorry. You’ve been...I can’t even say, you’ve been incredible….but I…”

She’s never seen pity in his eyes before but it's there now, and she can stand it, not from him. Not from that beautiful face. She can take the tsk’ing from her coworkers, and friends, from the women at the grocery store with their carts full of food and children, their _loving_ husbands and _devoted_ fathers on their arms. Her victim’s advocate is better but the pity is always there in her eyes too, just under the surface of all that sensitivity training.

“I love you,” She says,

Fleeing.


	11. Chapter 11

There’s a bus stop, the #45, not five or so steps from his door, but she gets on the #20 a block and a half in the other direction, to avoid any awkward reunions in the snow. The kind where the hero chases the heroine, the kind where he grabs their hand just before they can depart, holding them close, begging them with sincere expression to stay. **  
**

None of that shit.

He doesn’t chase her and she takes steps to ensure he can’t.

He doesn’t call, or blow up her phone with texts either save just one.

**

He lets her go, hollow hearted, the male in his balls screaming at him to give chase, while the man in his head tells him to stay his ass put.

He heeds the latter, reaffirming his resolve to only accept what she gives, given on her timeline and not his.

He’s not the patient type, preferring straight lines to close his short distances.

But he’ll wait for her. Maybe not forever. And if he indeed never sees her again, or sees her again with the thin gauzy curtain of friendship between that, he’ll take it.

Whatever she gives or doesn’t, he’ll take.

But it’s neither the male in his balls nor the man in his brain, it’s the _love_ in his heart that moves him to pick the phone and send a solitary message, so at least he’ll get _some_ sleep tonight.

_I understand. I’m here when and if you ever need me. Please let me know you’re home safe._

**

She doesn’t get the message until she’s ‘home’ an empty apartment with bare walls, barely any furniture, and an unlit Satinalia tree she tried to put up in a fit of forced cheer.

She reads it twice, then three times, then a fourth, feeling a sob birth, wither, and die on her tongue.

Instead she smiles.

_I’m home. I’m safe. Thank you._

**

They both go to work the next day.

At the bus stop she freezes, heart stuttering, encountering another man who looks and walks and dresses like her father. She pulls the hood on her coat low over her head, knowing it’s not him but hey, she feels better at least.

It’s a mental slugfest to not ask Officer Barris to switch patrols with him, he’s got the one that’ll take him through her neighborhood. He will not ask. He will _not_ ask. He doesn’t ask.

Officer Barris asks instead, citing an upset stomach and the promise of a favor owed for this boon.

Cullen takes it, keeping the gratitude carefully hidden.

“Ain’t shit wrong with you is there?” Officer Samson asks.

Barris just grins, sipping cheap coffee, watching their best friend almost skip into the cruiser.

There’s lights on in her house, multicolored, a Satinalia tree dressed and ready for the holiday in a scant 4 days. Driving slowly by, he feels dirty craning his neck out the window just for the shadow of her, thinking he sees a silhouette move behind the curtains.

Seeing nothing, but heart still lightened, he drives away.

The weekend passes, he works, she doesn’t.

They don’t speak.

Father doesn’t call anymore, nor does Granddaddy or millionaire cousin. She exchanges a scant few emails with the ex-wife and that’s it.

Radio silence.

Her nightmares don’t wake her, rather, when she does wake she remembers them and the terror they inflicted, being stuffed into trunks after being followed home from work. 

But she sleeps mostly.

Saturday to Sunday.

Sunday to Monday.

He goes to work, having given up any hope of ever seeing or hearing from her again, concerned that a man with seeming that much delusion would heed a court imposed order of protection.

Work trudges, like tires stuck in the slushy snow falling outside, her productivity goes nowhere and she barely gets anything done. She jumps every time her phone rings (work or otherwise), thinking it’s him.

Every time.

Staring at numbers she knows she knows before her brain registers them as safe.

Somewhere around 2, she starts wishing for Officer Rutherford’s number to appear.

“But you burned that bridge girl.”

Somewhere around 4 p.m. a sudden attack of guilt takes hold.

_Maybe she should speak to him._

_Maybe it’ll help._

_What if he’s scared, or hurt, or just needing to hear me to make sure I’m alright?_

_Maybe…_

_What if…_

_He’s family…_

_He’s your dad…_

_He’s family…_

_You say he’s sick, that he needs help. What if you’re the help? What if you’re the_ only _help. What would you do if he hurt himself because_ you _didn’t help?_

_How could you live with yourself?_

She leaves work early and buries herself under a blanket.

6 p.m. ticks by.

And her father goes free.


	12. Chapter 12

“Once upon a time,” she starts, infusing the her tone with the gravity such words implied. “When there was more magic in the world. When man and beast could shape Creation according to their Will. When gods of Might and Beauty and Death walked amidst the land bestowing their Gifts to the creatures that pleased them. **  
**

In that time, before you or I or anything we know existed, there were two kingdoms, alike in dignity, yet different in every other way. There,  a Prince of Gold loved a Princess of Mud.

And she was not the fairest in the land, far from it. She had no flesh of pale porcelain, or of unmarred creamy milk or milky cream. Her hair did not flow like water from a font, was not softer than the finest spun silk. She did not daintily go among the reeds, did not frolic in the rivers, or sing to the trees.

And he was not the strongest, outclassed too in wit and wile. He slayed no dragons or demons, tricked no witches. His wealth was modest as was his charm. Princes elsewhere were more handsome, had more feats of strength to trail their names.

They were Plain and Ordinary.

But Oh…

He numbered the hours of his days to the beat of her heart.

And she drew her nourishment, like a flower in the sun, from his smile.

As assuredly as the sun rose across the mountains and set against the hills did They Love.

But the king of the River Lands, the King of Mud, resented his daughter’s joy.

He was the King of Lies and Deception, the Author of Woe and Pain.

“He doesn’t love you.” He spun his lies in half truths, shrouded them in doubt. He guarded his daughter’s love jealously, sought to keep it for himself as he had nothing else.

That piety, that love, spelled her end. She believed her father’s lies, eminently logical as they were, and died in an agonizing a haze of gas lit smoke, in self-authored torment and guilt.

She died with her Prince’s name as a prayer upon her lips, love everlasting in her heart even as the metal hooks of the Underworld dragged her soul to final unrest.

When he heard, the Sun burned out and Gold lost its lustre. The world was cast into poverty and ice.

Incensed, the Prince of Gold and Sunlight tore a swath of grief on his way to his Princess’s pyre. Yet her father blocked the way.

“She cursed your name as she swallowed poison.” Her father lied, conjuring more gas fired smoke with his words. “She hated you. She loathed you.”

His pain begat more pain; he King of Mud and Lies sought more company for his torment. He delighted watching the light leave the Prince’s eyes.

The Prince pushed passed the King, forgetting the nights he spent talking to a wall practicing asking for his daughter’s hand. Spurred to action and motivated by guilt, he threw himself upon her pyre, arms wrapping around her stillness as the flames consumed them both.

They met again in the Underworld and did not speak.”

**

She closes the book, unheeding of the shocked and betrayed stare from her niece.

“Auntie Evelyn!” Livia rises from her cross-legged seat to pace about her room, footed pajamas thudding mutely against the carpet. “That story didn’t have a happy ending!”

Auntie Evelyn smiles, thin and fake, remembering her own Prince of Gold and Sunlight, the one she ran from in swirl of snow and hadn’t spoke to in three months.

The one with the faithful hound and the dumb grin on the dumb face, who wrapped tight around her little finger with just her smile.

“I know, love. Most stories don’t. Best to learn that early.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I knew there was a reason I never posted the ending I wrote.


	13. Chapter 13

She feels a bit wrong for inflicting that particular strain of cynicism on an 8 year old, but Livia insisted she wanted a bedtime story and one of ‘more mature’ tastes because, “I’m 8 years old Auntie Evelyn. I’m practically a 6th grader!” With all the pains and responsibilities of that lofty distinction.

Still, looking at her niece’s wide, tear rimmed eyes, Evelyn amends the end of the story, concocting some contrivance where the Prince of Gold and the Princess of Mud work together to escape the Underworld and rediscover their love along the way—wishing on the inside things could be that easy.

It’s been three months since she ran out on her own Prince, her knight in shining cop car, and she hadn’t really meant for it to be that long. There’s a folder on her desktop filled with unsent emails. They all start with ‘I’m sorry’ and they all end with ‘I love you’ and they just sit unfinished in the middle, abandoned for another, better letter that she writes in the throes of her malignant isolation only for that one to be abandoned too, and then the next…and the next…

She closes the book softly, her niece now sound asleep, gone off to Dreamland somewhere between the battle with the three-headed dog and the realization that the King of Mud lied to them both.

It’s a book of tales bound in dark brown leather. The spine has a great crack in the middle as though the book suffered a ruinous blow, but when she stands it on the table it still stands upright, able to bear its own weight.

She feels a bit like that book, suffused with the hope that all books are born with, that someone will find the merit of words written within and find it…her…worthy of reading.

And she starts off good, equal parts humorous and intelligent, there’s a sensual edge there too once the First Act concludes. But as the reader reads, the reader finds that this book is unfinished. 

There are words missing, tiny errors of omission that a good reader can still intuit meaning and intent, substitute their own words, splice in punctuation, and make the story flow again.

But by mid Act Two whole sentences disappear, scratched out in black ink so violently the marks are indented in the paper. Neat, nearly perfect handwriting appears in the margins above stating simply ‘This did not happen’.

Whole passages are blacked out. 

‘This did not happen.’

Then whole pages are blacked out.

‘This is wrong.’

She feels those blacked out passages, knows the truth of the words buried under but alas 

‘This did not happen.’

She feels like a book that at any time her co-author could come and rip out pages whole, leaving ragged edges behind like an amputation. If paper could bleed, she’d be drenched.

Cullen is a Good Reader.

He deserves a Finished Story.

And that’s what she’s told herself for three months. Trying to fill in the spaces that got ripped out and blacked out and re-written telling herself that he deserves a story whole and complete and beautiful.

But she’s got writers block, and the words don’t come.

Meanwhile, on the other side of town, Cullen, good reader, great reader, wonderful reader, would take her unfinished story and fill in the words and phrases and passages and pages. Would construct from whole cloth _new_ stories to replace the ones that got ripped out and written over. He would dedicate his life to the completion of her book. He’d make with her a whole new book.

He would do all that at the asking,

Than go illiterate.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come hop on this pain train


End file.
